


Drabbles - Giles

by lycomingst



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-02
Updated: 2010-01-02
Packaged: 2017-10-05 16:04:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lycomingst/pseuds/lycomingst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a collection of unrelated drabbles featuring Giles. Most were written for the "Open on Sunday" LJ community.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drabbles - Giles

**Giles**

Giles was on the phone while he got ready.

"Well, it all started that Halloween, Buffy. I found I enjoyed the masquerading very much."

(Phone squawking)

"No, perhaps the sombrero wasn't the wisest choice, but it's something totally different now."

(Phone squawking)

"Well, obviously it isn't Halloween, but I found this marvelous club, a private club, where I can indulge in this harmless mummery. It's quite liberating. So far it's been long gowns, but I want to try something a little more daring. That's why I called, to ask you. When one shaves one's legs, how high does one go?"

 

**Make Believe**

Their final row.

"I could make you stay, you know," Ethan said.

"No, you couldn't. And you wouldn't." Ripper, his eyes averted, packed.

"Why wouldn't I? God, you're so naïve. You're going to hide in that airy-fairy world of Watchers? They're as real as bedtime stories"

"This is what's not real," Ripper said.

Ethan looked as though he'd been struck. "Ah, I see. Well, like poor Ophelia, I was the more deceived. I just leave gracefully, then. Let you get on with your bits and pieces."

He wanted to slam the door behind him, but didn't.

**November**

The November weather is as it should be. Cold, overcast, drizzly. Not a shortsleeve and suntan lotion month. Unnatural that.

The newspapers have adverts about enticing Christmas gifts, not recipes for evermore surprising, even bizarre, ways to cook a turkey.

So Giles is home, settled again in his fierce little island. And the fourth Thursday of this month is nothing special. Merely the day before the day before the weekend.

But he has invited Andrew and a few other stragglers to dinner that night. And if the ones he cherishes most aren't there, well, that is what memories are for.

**Reflection**

They are gathered around the library table, all engaged in research. Willow's lips are compressed as if her will is directing the computer's information stream. Buffy is idly turning pages, probably looking at the drawings. Xander's foot is tapping to music only he can hear, but he's jotting notes on paper. Giles looks up and around and suddenly remembers himself at their age.

Just beginning to enter his wild stage. About to fall in with the wrong crowd. Not earnest, mission dedicated like these young things. Will they have careless years ahead of them? Will they live to see them?

**Temperature**

"Subtract 32, then multiply by 5/9."

'Huh, what?"

"I'm not going to repeat it, Xander, unless you want to write it down. It's a simple enough formula and you would do well to learn it."

"You do that every morning? The weather man comes on the radio and gives the temperature and you have to change Fahrenheit to Celsius? "

"If I want to know how to dress, I do."

"But you always wear tweed jackets," said Buffy.

"And vests," said Willow.

Giles said dryly, "If it's especially warm, I wear lightweight socks. Now, can we get back to researching?"

**Later**

Later

The nights were all right; he patrolled and came back exhausted. In the morning though, he often found it hard to get out of bed. There seemed little point in doing so.

Why was he still here? Drummed out, epaulets torn off by the Council. Anya resented him at the shop. These children should be going on with their lives, not chasing demons. And Spike, Spike should go to hell.

One day he'd climb into the shiny red car and just drive away. To parts unknown.

What was it Janis sang? "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."

**Serenity**

"She looks peaceful, doesn't she? Like she's asleep." a stranger said to him.

Giles turned away from the casket. He thought Joyce's face looked blank, erased. He glanced around the room.

Maybe the deceased only looked serene in comparison to the upheaval they left as legacy. He saw Buffy, Dawn and their friends huddling together, stunned by confusion and sorrow.

Giles thought, not for the first time, that one of the reasons he pulled back from Ethan's use of magic was that there was no need to summon up Chaos. Life will surely, sooner or later, bring it to us.

**Afterglow**

He plunged his hands into the soapy dishwater, glad that dinner was over. "Maybe," he thought, slightly smiling "grateful that Thanksgiving dinner is over is the appropriate word."

He worked alone, the small kitchen unsuited for the kinetic activity of teenaged helpers. He sent them home with leftovers.

Washing and rinsing, he reviewed the day. Fought evil ghosts, dealt with repentant killer vampire, I'm now living with unrepentant killer vampire in my bathroom. Yes, a full day.

The Watchers' Training manual didn't cover days like this.

Let's hope we don't have to deal with a pack of homicidal elves at Christmas.

**Chums**

Chums

"What's the story, again?" Giles asked. He'd had lots of scotch.

"I've told you."

"Tell me again because, frankly, it's preposterous." Last word wobbly.

"Timmy fell down the well. We're watching to see if he gets out. Now, shut it,"

Giles studied Spike intensely as moments passed. "And you're saying Timmy is a puppet, or doll, or fabrication of some sort? But yet, he lives?" Giles giggled, "Timmy fell down the well. That was a fell blow. That's a pun."

"I got it." Spike nodded.

Giles smiled, benignly. It's was good to have someone with whom one could speak English.

**Death Beating the Door In**

There's no way out. Just the glimmer of hope that the Slayer will come rescue him.

His back against the wall, he waits and the oddness of his hearing his own heartbeat over the racket the vampires are making distracts him. His associates back in London will, no doubt, be waggish about this. Gossiping over their morning coffee for weeks, _I hear Giles was dispatched by demons in a mortuary. Very labor-saving of him!_

At the last moment he saves himself, spending long moments crouched over a corpse, in a refrigerator, pondering his career choices.

 

**Giles Writes**

For days afterward, it never occurred to him. Then, as the empty hours mounted up, he knew he must chronicle the events for the Watchers' book.

He stared at the blank page that needed to be filled with Buffy's death. His final duty to her. He began, the words gliding from his pen. He hesitated, thinking _was using 'dark night' too clichéd? _. And a sudden vision of Watchers through the ages, searching for the 'perfect' word, filled his mind. _Writers are such vultures. The right word!_, he thought in disgust.

It was weeks until he could complete the entry.

**Giles**

Giles

The evenings were long after Jennie's death, Jennie's murder.

That was the funny thing about death, he mused as he downed another quarter inch of Scotch. The person who would understand your sorrow and guilt, who could be a comforting presence, is the person who is dead. Thinking about it, no, that wasn't funny.

He probably needed food. No food shopping for weeks. He'd go out and get something, protein. Lots of protein.

He walked to a small restaurant close by and went in. The hostess smiled at him and asked, "How many in your party?"

"Just one," he said.

 

**Musings**

He came home wearing Ethan's shirt. Well, he'd done that before. And Ethan's taste had gotten much better since the last time. At least, he was using a lighter scent than he did.

Slipping it off, he admitted to himself it felt much more sensuous than his ordinary cotton. He threw it away.

One quick drink to celebrate he's still alive. Buffy can find him in any disguise, they've become that close.

Then another thought. Their lives are so intertwined that each other's ex-lovers have brought havoc and destruction to them. Angelus, Ethan.

Watcher and Slayer, it felt like family.

 

**The World as It Is**

He lived in a mad world where the thing that murdered his lover came to him for help. The beast, proclaiming he was a beast no longer, could stand on his threshold and beg pardon for bothering him. And he stepped aside to let it in. He forgave it.

Yet the other one. The one who caused him no direct harm, caused Giles' emotions to churn. The bluster, the rashness, the self-involvement, the sheer carelessness of his ego rasped against Giles. He knew Spike to be unworthy.

He didn't know how much he saw the other, former Giles in Spike.

**Fitting In**

He's packing up, with only Xander helping. It was too much for the others.

"What about this?" Xander holds up the object.

"Goodwill, I think. It's a perfectly good sombrero." Something from the 'Lost Giles' collection. An attempt to be normal, do normal things. Only he would think that involved a Mexican hat.

So now it would be welcoming the winter with Guy Fawkes Day, not Halloween. Should he make sure he had pennies for the guy? Did they still do that?

He boxed up securely some rare occult books and thought, "Rupert Giles, out of touch on two continents."

**In the Doldrums**

There had been a flyer, he remembered. On florescent paper with huge type and exclamation points. He found it stuck on his doorknob when having run out of tea and bread and whiskey, he had to go out.

It was a neighborhood uprising, it seems. The church bells. Ringing on Sunday morning. They always had but now new people had moved in. In Sunnydale where so much was inexplicable and random, they wanted control over their sleep cycle.

Lying in his bed, he welcomed the bells. Among the endless blank days, how else would he know another week had passed?

**Leisure**

After Graduation Day, Giles didn't know what to do with himself. For the first time in years he was idle.

He decided to write a novel. Why not? He'd had an adventurous life. Hadn't he just blown up a high school?

But as he sat with his special fountain pen and paper tablet in front of him, he didn't know where to start. Always before, there had been an assignment. School essays, Watcher reports, Watcher's Diary. Someone gave him a topic and he wrote. On his own, nothing came.

He sat for two hours, thinking, then went out for coffee.

 

**Like Always**

Like Always

The sun comes up; the alarm goes off. The covers come off.

The morning starts like always. Toilet, shower, shave.

Then breakfast. First, a splash of hot water to warm the pot; a teaspoon of leaves for each cup and one extra; boiling water; steep; strain; a dollop of milk.

Toast; orange marmalade; the morning paper.

It's different than it was. This is how; no tea bags; no hot California wind; no vampires; no staking; no terror; no death; no Scoobies; no Watching; no Buffy.

Is it the beginning of a new life or a retreat to the old one?

 

**Ripper**

Ripper awoke.

God, his head ached. He could feel each tooth. Was he blind? No, there, he opened his eyes a quarter inch. His hand brushed the crust from his lashes.

What the hell was that bloody noise?

He was in bed. In a slow rolling motion he swung his legs over the side. He peered at the radio. "Can't Buy Me Love", the fabulous Beatles. Ripper picked the radio up, throwing it at the opposite wall.

From the other side of the bed, Ethan said, "Who do you have to fuck to get a cup of tea around here?"

 

**Intimations**

She was a very taxing woman. Giles found being with her to be extremely aggravating.

With her foolish devotion to computers, all plastics and recalcitrant bits and pieces that don't respond to any commonsensical approach, which she combines with a deep interest in the occult. Actually telling him things he didn't know!

And she does it with a skeptical raised eyebrow, a sly smile, a hint of laughter in her eyes. She says, "Oh, Rupert!" in her honeyed voice and walks away, the light scent she uses lingering for just a moment after her.

Giles hopes he sees again soon.

**New World**

"Shift yourself," Giles said as he pushed against Ethan in an attempt to gain a place on the banquette.

Ethan moved down, grabbing the pint Giles had brought him, saying in his best falsetto, "Oh, who's all manly and commanding?"

"Fuck off," Giles snarled through his dangling cigarette.

They sat, their legs pressed against each other, and talked to their mates sitting round the table. They talked about uni, music, magic, anything. Whatever position Giles took on a subject, Ethan took the contrary one, to torment and badger him. They argued for hours.

Giles thought he'd never been so happy.

**Three Men, Three Thoughts**

"The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong."

Liam was taught that, but Angelus doesn't believe it. His strength lets him take what he wants and so quickly that his prey cannot say their last prayers.

Travers is quite convinced of it. The Slayers are swift and strong, aren't they? And yet they die and the Council goes on.

Giles knows the quotation. He hopes, sincerely, that it is true as he engages with demons in a cave. Though the words are not as great a comfort as knowing that Buffy has his back

**This Summer**

Last year he went on holiday. Why not, his Slayer did.

This year was different. The Slayer was drifting somewhere. Beyond his ken or his help.

Still, things had to be done. This summer the Hellmouth was busy. He had amateurs to caution, admonish, restrain. When he couldn't do that, he had scratches and bruises to see to; lectures to administer.

He had reading to do. Calls to take. Fruitless trips to distant spots on the map to make. He had unanswerable questions to ponder. He had spirits to buck up.

This year he had a grave to keep tidy.

 

**Time**

"It comes to every man, I suppose," thought Giles. "When he can no longer have what he wants. When he sees what he desires, but it is no longer his for the taking."

As a man gets older, he gets more wily. He sees trouble ahead and can avoid it, use his experience to thwart the consequences. But Nature always wins. You do what she says.

He walked the dairy aisle of the supermarket sunk in despair. No more half and half in his coffee or whole milk in his tea. Skim or 1% milk from now on. Doctor's orders.

**Viewpoint**

When Giles returned to report about his dead Slayer, everyone at headquarters was sympathetic, hearty handshakes, clasped shoulders. Yet, he had the sense that people were smiling and nudging one another when he left the room.

Finally, a friendly secretary explained it to him. "Oh, Rupert, they understand you've lost a Slayer; they do feel badly for you but, well, honestly, it's sometimes like a boarding school here. Really, that level of amusement. It's the reports you've sent back about your run-ins with assorted demons. And your being repeatedly bopped on the head. They've taken to calling you 'Benny Hill'."

**Was Not/Was**

There was a teary-eyed girl to comfort after her big sister ran away. There were sticky fingers to keep away from his precious volumes. There was a Slayer to be made to focus when she wanted to rant about a sweater-stealing little brat.

But it never happened. Buffy explains there were only reality twisting monks who gave them this gift, this different life.

Later, Giles enters his flat, looks about at familiar books, carefully chosen art, personal trinkets. This is home, a place he remembers filling with comfort and memories and now he wonders if he's ever been here before.

**Working at It**

They were exhausted. For days they'd been searching for the correct spell to vanquish the latest demon. Buffy's strength wouldn't do it. This would need magic.

They had to delve deeper into the books. Giles gave a list of words to look for, and Buffy, Willow, Xander dutifully flipped pages scanning for them.   
Hungry, sleepy, irritable, they'd get confused.

Giles thumped a new batch of books on the table. He said, "And for goodness sakes, write out the right rite"

Three pair of half-closed eyes stared at him.

"Sorry," he took a sip of tea, "I really am rather tired."


End file.
